The Wulugu Project works in northern Ghana to tackle poverty through education

The Wulugu Project

Where is Wulugu?

Wulugu is a village in the far north of Northern Region of Ghana, extremely remote and difficult to reach by road. We now work with hundreds of villages across the Northern Region (the largest and most challenging region of Ghana), but we have kept our original name “The Wulugu Project”. Over 60% of the population live in poverty, but with the Projects support, the quality of life, especially for girls and women is improving.

What does Wulugu Project do in Ghana?

Our Ghana team reviews the requests from villagers for new schools or improvements / repairs to older buildings or desks. They submit their thoughts and costings, which the U.K. committee consider and then seek funding. When fully funded, the money is sent directly to our bank in Tamale and spent immediately to complete the specific task. We build primary, junior high and vocational schools plus hostels to keep the girls safe while they study. Teachers accommodation, toilet blocks, water storage tanks etc. are also often added to the list in order that the schools function efficiently. Systems of microloans-loans to village women and graduates enable the women to make full use of their opportunities.

It is calculated that we have improved the lives of over 250,000 girls.

What is Wulugu?

The Wulugu Project

The Wulugu Project was founded in 1993 by Lynne Symonds, a science teacher and wife of a Norfolk farmer. It developed out of a chance meeting between Lynne and Karimu Nachina at a Science Conference. Lynne was amazed to hear about the problems faced with educating girls in the Northern area of Ghana and returned to Norfolk, determined to try and help Karimu, the headmaster of a new school.

Initially the fundraising was to help Wulugu Secondary School, hence the charity’s name. After providing books for the school, a hostel was built for 120 girls from the surrounding area to keep them safe at school. Twenty years ago few girls were educated at all and the figures showed that only 5% of women in Ghana could read or write.

“Education is to be valued. Sell you cattle to send your children to school. Cattle can be replaced but not the children”

A very wise and brave man.

Latest News

Award from Downing Street

The Wulugu Project founder has received a ‘Points of Light’ award from the Prime Minister. This is a great honour and reflects the tremendous work over the years by our teams in Ghana and UK and the strong support from donors. We estimate that it has cost us approximately £6 per head to ensure education for over quarter of a million children.

A School for Kokpeng Village

Village women are helping build a school with toilets for this very deprived district. This is a (literally!) ground-breaking project as we have been given funding to build a strengthened building, hoping to delay the normal weather damage and so save money in the long run.

Help from Ghana

A Ghanaian charity has helped us in our improvements at Savelugu Vocational school by providing 2 extra classrooms.

Biddick Academy, Sunderland

Students are giving a presentation at an 'Association for Science Education' meeting in Sunderland to explain about the links between Poverty, Education and Conservation.